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Nuclear bunker busters come under scrutiny

By David Hambling

What are the risks to civilians if the US military ever uses the “bunker-busting” nuclear weapon that the Bush administration is developing? That’s the question scientists must investigate as a condition of further funding for the project.

Are battlefield weapons enough?

The controversial Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) programme has been awarded &dollar;15 million development funding in 2002, with the same amount likely in 2003. But a new clause attached to the funding calls for the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to investigate what effect any use of the weapon would have.

The clause was added by moderates when the Senate and House of Representatives met to finalise the Defense Authorization Act, published last week. The demand comes on top of a requirement that the military assess conventional alternatives (see the 8 March 2003 issue of New Scientist print edition).

The RNEP would be designed to plunge 30 metres or more into the ground before detonating a nuclear warhead. This would make it far more effective against buried targets, say advocates, who claim that it will produce less fallout than airburst nuclear weapons.

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But critics claim that it is physically impossible for the weapon to bury itself deep enough to contain a nuclear explosion, and that radioactive fallout would contaminate a wide area.

While the NAS has yet to begin work on its RNEP study, it is promising a rigorous report. “The NAS will not be influenced by political pressure from the government or the military,” says a spokesman. “We are independent.”

He added that the report will also examine whether using the weapon against a bunker full of biological or chemical agents could release the agents rather than destroy them. The military believes the high temperature and radiation burst will neutralise such agents.

“The NAS study is certainly a step in the right direction,” says Jim Bridgman, director of a pressure group called the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability based in Washington DC. But because a negative assessment is likely to be contested by the Pentagon, he thinks the study is more likely to merely delay rather than halt RNEP’s development.